Readers know I have been avoiding financial stocks all year. However, when great portfolio managers, like Bruce Berkowitz of the Fairholme Fund, argue just that financial stocks are great buys, one naturally has to wonder. The International Monetary just issued a report that our financial system indeed remains very vulnerable to another crisis (1) because our regulatory structure is still too cumbersome, despite the new…
Tom Brokaw is the famed longtime anchor of NBC News and serious chronicler of generations. His recent study of the Baby Boomers found the belief common to most Boomers was that “things” would always get better, an undying sense of optimism. As a Boomer myself, I plead guilty! That’s why it is so important to closely examine the bad news. We have seen deflation for…
An old Wall Street axiom is that the four most dangerous words are “This Time is Different”. Preceeding the last recession, it was widely believed this time was different because the new risk management techniques provided by derivatives, such as collateralized debt obligations, prevented any financial “blow-out”. In fact, some argued that recessions were no longer possible, and that we were entering The Great Moderation…
Q. Is it over?A. The bill has passed and will become law. However, any bill this important will require many months and years of regulatory implementation. As always, the “devil will be in the details”. Q. Is this a disaster for banking U.S. system?A. No, but it will require some change and increase compliance costs. Q. Will the costs be passed along to the consumer?A.…
That’s the sound of me patting myself on the back. Tuesday, the Fed changed their position, saying the economy was weaker than they earlier expected and that it could take 5-6 years for the economy to fully recover. Long time readers know I have been expecting a Nike Swoosh type of recovery, not V-shaped, nor W-shaped, but a long, hard slog back to recovery, primarily…
Recently, there has been considerable debate within the economic community about the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some argue the cost should only include the money appropriated by Congress, which is a little over $1 trillion. (See http://www.costofwar.com/) Others argue you should include the continuing cost of veterans’ care over their lifetimes or the wages a fallen soldier would have earned in…
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Earlier this month, a market analyst named Robert Prechter predicted the Dow would fall about 90% over the next six years, from about 10,000 to only 1,000. He is better known as one of the few surviving apostles of the “Elliott Wave Theory”, first developed by Ralph Nelson Elliott in 1939 but popularized by Prechter in a 1978book titled The Elliott Wave Principle. He’s been…
